L.
Suresh Film distributor and producer and President
of the Film Federation of India’s speech
It gives me great pleasure in heartily welcoming
the Honorable Finance Minister Sri.Pranab Mukherjee
of our mighty nation. We are grateful to you
sir for having accepted our invitation to come
and join us at this critical hour since we are
aware how every second is precious for you immediately
after presenting the wonderful budget.
There is a common proverb known as “the
proof of the pudding lies in the eating”.
The stock market greeted your budget with a
jump in their indexes & all the captains
of the various industries have welcomed your
budget appreciating it to be one of the best
budgets and this budget on a macro economical
level will boost the economy of our country
to greater level.
It is rather appropriate that this function
is being organized by the Film Federation Of
India popularly known as FFI - which is the
only Apex body in India comprising of 59 Associations
from all over India from the Production, Distribution,
Exhibition, Studio Owners, & Short Films
Producers’ Associations.
We have great pleasure in inviting the Finance
Minister to release the Musical CD of the Marathi
film KRANTIVEER RAJ GURU who was hanged to death
by the British rulers along with the great Bhagath
Singh & Sukhdev. We had the pleasure of
listening to the soulful songs of the film.
It is not an exaggeration to claim that this
melodious music composed by Shri Krishna Mohan
is as melodious as we used to hear the tunes
of Shri Salil Choudhary and the great Shri S.D.
Burman who hailed from the east of India.
The Indian Film industry can never forget the
contribution from our eastern fraternity be
it poetry or literature or melodious music or
contemporary cinema produced & directed
by stalwarts from Kolkatta region. I am sure
the music of this film as well as the film will
reach a much greater height in our country.
So I am pretty sure that the songs of this film
have been heard by the most prominent personalities
in the Indian Film Industry.
I must really compliment Shri Ashok Kamle for
being the Producer cum Director of this historical
movie. I am sure that this film will win several
National and International awards as well as
rewards.
Although it may not be a highly appropriate
moment to bring to light the main problems of
the Indian Film Industry, yet at this moment
we are left with no other alternative excepting
to bring it to your urgent & kind attention.
Sir, in India though we produce approximately
1200 films in a year, which is the highest in
the world, it is a sad fact that for the past
three years the percentage of box office success
of films in India - be it Hindi, Tamil, Telugu,
Bengali, Orissa, Kannada, Marathi, or Malayalam
language - is hardly 10 % which is a hard hitting
reality & undeniable truth.
There are several reasons for this and this
may not be the right platform to elaborate the
reasons for the failure of films. We can substantiate
this statement with relevant press statement
and magazine clippings from trade journals.
At this stage we would like to bring to your
notice an interesting statistics relating to
our Production sector - that out of 30 departments
that we use in the Production of a film 27 departments
are burdened with service tax and all of them
being borne by the Producer alone. Under this
present scenario, we have already submitted
a memorandum to your good self, requesting you
to kindly reduce the Service Tax burden on the
Film Industry.
Now in the proposed budget proposals to our
shock and horror we find that we are further
burdened with another service tax on Transfer
of Copyright which had been exempted till date.
May we take this opportunity to humbly point
out that your present budget have given so much
of relief to so many Indians but unfortunately
have burdened the already sagging film industry
with the above Service tax on Copyright which
will break the backbone of the Film Industry.
Secondly, although Film Industry has been recognized
as an Industry we are sorry to bring to your
kind attention that many of the benefits given
to the other Industries have not been made available
to the Film Industry. Majority of the Film Industry
people are deprived of loans from banks despite
the recommendations from the Kannan Committee
constituted under the guidelines of Reserve
Bank of India.
This is despite the better and clean record
of the Industry as far as bank repayments are
concerned. I would like to repeat a statement
made by the Head of IDBI division in charge
of financing the Film Industry. The IDBI openly
admitted in a forum in front of our I &
B Minister that they are recovering 100 % of
the loans advanced by them to the Film Industry
and this is the only Industry where there is
no N P A at all!
This has been possible in this typical 90% failure
rated Industry, because of the inherent characteristic
of our Industry to repay the loans before the
release of any film and not from the recovery
from market i.e. box office collections. However
it is ironical that despite the above, IDBI
gives funds only for very big projects.
We earnestly request you Sir - to kindly instruct
that the banks must come forward and finance
smaller projects only against collateral security
of our negatives alone as recommended by the
Kanann Committee.
Sir, we have the greatest pleasure of welcoming
you and felicitating you for this evening function
and we will be ever grateful to you if you could
kindly accede to our demands. I once again welcome
all the dignitaries who have come for this function
on our invitation and hope we will have an enjoyable
evening. |
